The Obama administration announced that it would give consumers an additional eight days to enroll in coverage through the health insurance exchanges that begins Jan. 1. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decided to extend the deadline for purchasing coverage from Dec. 15 to Dec. 23 to give people as much time as possible to purchase insurance, in part because so many individuals have had trouble accessing HealthCare.gov. The original Dec. 15 deadline was intended to give insurers enough time to send out medical cards and get new patients into their systems.

The White House also stated that HHS is delaying by one month the start of open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges for coverage that would begin in 2015. The delay is intended to give insurers more time to assess the first year of their plans. The delay will push back the launch of the open enrollment period from Oct. 15, 2014, to Nov. 15, 2014.